Starry Night
by lena1987
Summary: "Give me a starry night, with fire and rebirth." A short one-shot of healing and being healed. Charlie/Lavender.


_This was written for the wonderful Livejournal community, rarepair-shorts, for the user: Katmarajade. It has been checked over but edited only on the fly._

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 **Starry Night**

She bows her head, her lower lip caught under one pearly-white canine. "I need something from you. Or rather," Lavender amends, "I'd like your assistance. With something." And now firmer: " _I'd like your assistance with something_." She exhales softly, as if the words were costly to produce.

Charlie eyes her, intrigued yet wary. She's in the backroom, see, and witches don't often wander this far into the shop and if they do, he reckons that they're not witches like the nervous one before him now. Has she ever been nervous? _Was_ she ever nervous? Charlie searches back, tries to catch spinning threads of memories – try as he might, all he can remember of the girl in the past is how he once caught a flash of her plump, rounded arse as she ran on her toes between his youngest brother's room and the bog.

It was a nice arse. He clears his throat, rubbing at the stubble on his chin as he examines her. It _is_ a nice arse.

"Why me?" he tries, spreading his hands. "I haven't seen you in years."

"Do you ask the others that?"

"No," he says immediately, giving her one unapologetic shrug. "Just curious, I suppose. You're a mystery."

This brings a light flush to her cheeks. She wrings her hands together just once, and he catches a glimpse of thick, angry scars that snake up from her wrists, disappearing under the sleeves of her chocolate-coloured robes.

He chews on his lip thoughtfully, then mutters, "Are you sure about this?"

"Why ever not?" she demands, hands on her shapely hips. There's a fire here somewhere in her – he'd recognise it from a mile away. He leans back on the stool, arms crossed over his chest. He's got an idea for what to do with that fire – to quench it, if only for a time.

"Besides, it's only a—"

Charlie clicks his tongue and offers her one smug smirk. "Wrong. Not _only._ It'll stay with you forever – morph with your body, move with it. It'll stay with you. When everything is dead and gone, it remains, inked on your skin, etched into your flesh…" Her blue eyes are wide now, and her fingers unclench from the handle of her bag. It falls to the floor with a thud; his eyes are on hers, and he barely hears it. "So?" he asks, cocking his head to the side. "What will it be, love?"

Before the words even finish slipping out of his mouth, Lavender begins to unbutton her robes, daring him with her fierce expression to comment. She's a determined little witch, he'll give her that.

…

"Like this?"

"Ah," she sighs, her head tilting back. "And slightly to the left…"

With a grunt of assent, he reassess her skin. She's perched on her own stool that sits in the spot between his parted legs. His heart is pounding, and her skin is soft and warm.

He's painting over and around the scars on her back; the claw-marks have sunk down deep into her flesh, and in places, Charlie realises that the beast carved so much out of her that there wasn't enough skin to replace what was stolen. There are deep grooves winding down her spine; slashings mark her waist; her shoulders carry indents where the claws dug ferociously in.

"The left?" he confirms, mouth dry. He dips his hand into the bowl of warm water beside him, and returns his calloused fingers to the skin of her back. She tenses, then sighs again. He traces lines with the charmed water, playing with designs that will complement the scars, rather than erase them.

"What does it look like?" she asks breathlessly, her body quivering slightly as he dares to trail one finger along the nape of her neck. Her curls are cut short; he wonders if he could even wind one strand around his finger. Perhaps it might be more important to investigate the reasoning behind this strange desire, but Charlie has never been one for sugar-coating.

"It'll be beautiful," he says, his voice rough. He's painting a phoenix now, rising from the broken skin near one shoulder-blade. He hasn't even arched his neck enough to look, but suddenly the knowledge that her bra is off and her breasts are bare, nipples tightening in the air that is hitting the other side of her body… this knowledge is a hard burden to bear.

"Describe it to me."

Charlie swallows, his fingers curving now towards her neck. Again she gives a tiny delicate shudder. "Here," he murmurs, "is a phoenix. "And here—" he drags his palm down to her lower back, "—here are the flames."

"Flames," she says quietly, nodding once. "A good word to describe the worst of them…"

Giving in, his large hands squeeze her waist. "The best of them," he corrects her, eyelids fluttering with the pleasure of it all. "And then for the rest, I want… Curves and spirals, something ethereal…" The charmed water displays them all in a silky, black temporary ink. Later he'll replace it with something permanent, something magical, in colours that will create a work of art on her body. "It almost makes me think of a painting…"

"Starry Night," she says firmly. "Give me a starry night, with fire and rebirth. I want to be reborn, Charlie. I've had enough of sadness. Would you? Would you do this for me?"

He presses one hand purposefully down on her shoulder to turn her around on the stool, and she allows it, her body now beginning to sway towards him. Could she ever have thought, in her wildest nightmares or most desperate thoughts, that he could refuse?


End file.
